Prosecutor: Shooting Justified In Huckabee Case

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EL DORADO, Ark. (AP) — Law enforcement officers were justified in using deadly force in a shootout that killed a man accused in the death of two people, including a relative of former Gov. Mike Huckabee, an Arkansas prosecutor said Monday.

Donald Hux had just shot his ex-wife, Amy Huckabee, and was a suspect in her husband’s death, when he was shot in January. Authorities said Hux earlier shot and killed Sandy Huckabee, who had married Hux’s ex-wife, before kidnapping Amy Huckabee and her three children. He left the children at his parent’s home, and later died in a shootout near there.

Sandy Huckabee was related to former presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee.

The El Dorado News Times first reported the shooting had been declared justified after prosecutor Robin Carroll sent a letter to the Arkansas State Police last week with his findings.

“It’s just obvious that they were justified in what they did,” Carroll said Monday.

In a summary of the Arkansas State Police investigation, an agent said Hux was released Jan. 19 from a Louisiana jail, where he was serving time for a sex-related crime.

Hux returned to his parent’s home outside El Dorado in southern Arkansas, where his father said he became upset when Amy Huckabee “refused to let him talk to his children on the phone,” the agent wrote.

In the early morning hours of Jan. 22, Hux drove his father’s pickup truck to the Huckabee home in Arkadelphia, where he shot and killed Sandy Huckabee, according to the report.

He abducted Amy Huckabee and their three children and pulled the battery out of her cell phone so it wouldn’t work before driving back to southern Arkansas.

Hux’s father told investigators he could hear Amy Huckabee screaming when Hux dropped off the children, so he called the local sheriff to report the incident.

Authorities found Sandy Huckabee dead in his home. The children weren’t hurt.

Hux returned to his parents’ home later that night to switch vehicles. A short while later, officers spotted his vehicle on a dim road a few miles from his parents’ home. Hux was driving, and Amy Huckabee was in the passenger’s seat.

As officers told Hux to give up and get out of the vehicle, they saw him pull a gun and shoot Amy Huckabee twice in the head, according to the report.

Law enforcement officers then started shooting, and Hux died.

An autopsy summary included in the prosecutor’s report said Amy Huckabee’s hands had been bound together with cable ties. Hux’s autopsy showed he died from multiple gunshot wounds, none of which appeared to be self-inflicted.